What are the causes of the decline of Zimbabwe's economy?

Question

What are the causes of the decline of Zimbabwe's economy?

Answer 1

1.Mugabe kicked out white farmers from their land.

2.White farmers where the backbone to country's economy.

3.Mugabe kicked the farmers because he thought that it was unfair that 3% (the whites) of the country's population owned 90% of the fertile land.

4.With the farmers gone, no one is left to farm the land, therefore a decline in national revenue.

5.Inflation skyrockets.

6.The government prints more money which paradoxically accelerates the inflation rate.

7.The economy is stuck in a ruthless cycle

8.Inflation reaches an all-time record of 2,200,000%

9.Just last week a 100 billion note was issued

You may ask why Mugabe kicked out the farmers in the first place.

This is because he thought that he would gain the support of the people thereby fueling his rhetoric and strengthening his hold on power. He did not redistribute the land to the people as he had promised but redistributed it to his supporters instead who don't farm the land or know anything about farming. Sanctions given by the UN and wesern nations have limited Zimbabwe's trade with other country's and tourism has seen a steep decline.

I hope i've helped you

Cheers

/Daniel

Answer 2

I think the Lone Wayfarer has answered it rather decently although I would add the following:

1) John Major's government signed an agreement with Mugabe's first government for the buyback of land from the white farmers to be returned to the original black owners and to be financed by the British (i.e. "righting" a wrong).

2) Tony Blair cancelled the said agreement stating that the buybacks should be financed by the Zimbabwe government and not Britain.

3) Mugabe threatened to evict the farmers without compensation if the Blair/Brown government did not review their position, which they refused to do.

The rest is history....

If you look at Racism in Europe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_E... you will discover that this phenomenon of "Hating foreigners who steal our wealth" is not unique to Zimbabwe or Africa with two major differences:

I) No black colonisers came to Europe to take away the land from their rightful white owners for their own uses or benefits.

II) Despite representing, on average, between 5-10% of any European nation's population, blacks own less than 1% of the wealth, but have been targetted more viciously accross Europe/"the West" than whites ever have been in Africa. Some examples are:

a) Extermination of Germany's black during the third Reich in concentration camps.

b) Racial slurs at black players in many championship games  in Spain, Portugal and Italy.

c) Racial murders with unsympathetic intervention of authorities in Russia, Germany and France

d) Countless acts of racial killings, mistreatment, prejudice in the USA.

The list is so long that I might as well stop here. To reverse the point, the only country where racism has happened to the European/Western scale in Africa was Zimbabwe (population 14Million out of a total African population of nearly 1Billion) and a minority of them support Mugabe and even fewer are racist. Statistically this makes Africans the least racist people on Earth. This should be some food for thought